


A Question Old, A Question New, A Question Borrowed, A Question Blue

by HaroThar



Series: SPOP shorts [3]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Background Bow/Glimmer, F/F, Growing Up, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, One-sided Bow/Perfuma, POV Alternating, Relationship Advice, Shifting Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 00:35:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17457257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: The age old question. A body new and strange. An experience second-hand. A sorrow.Netossa and Spinnerella don't think of themselves as fonts of wisdom, but give the best advice to Perfuma that they can.





	A Question Old, A Question New, A Question Borrowed, A Question Blue

First.

They are teenagers at their first solo princess prom, no longer attended by their mothers, now made queens. They are young, the last remaining allies of the Bright Moon Rebellion, and they are in love. The whole of Etheria must know it. They keep saying it over and over, just for the sheer joy of it, the exuberance, “That’s my _girlfriend.”_ “That’s _my_ girlfriend.” _“That’s_ my girlfriend.” Each inflection is tried, the words rolling unfamiliar and giggly off their tongues. They’re _girlfriends._ They’re _together._ They’re in _love._

Two tugs made by a tiny hand draw Spinnerella’s attention down her dress. There is little Perfuma, too young to be at princess prom without clinging to her mother’s skirts, but possessing no mother with skirts on which to cling. She is attended by a nanny-looking plus one, her people mindful of their Princess’s life after the loss of their Queen’s. 

“What’s being in love like?” little Perfuma asks her, and Spinnerella smiles and kneels and hands her the fondant flower she’d saved off her cupcake for last. 

“It’s a magical feeling,” Spinnerella tells her happily, looking over to Netossa, the shape of her a brilliant flare against the backdrop of the world. “It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.”

Little Perfuma takes the confection and nods thoughtfully, the too-serious expression of a child deep in the inner workings of her own mind on her tiny brow. Then she smiles, eats the frosting, and dances off, the flowers and intricate pins of her hair bursting with life along the lower level of the dance floor. Spinnerella goes to Netossa’s side, thinking little of it. 

Second. 

Netossa and Spinnerella were older, wiser, but it didn’t feel like they’re wise or old enough. They were in Plumeria at Queen Angella’s behest, having received word of Horde soldiers menacing the river. The few soldiers that were there scattered quickly with Spinnerella and Netossa’s arrival, and they went to Plumeria’s center to tell the reigning monarch of the news. Little Perfuma—who was not as little anymore—insisted on feeding them an assortment of party carrots and brightly colored salads, and offered them a place to stay if they spent the night. While technically Spinnerella’s magic could get them back to their home territories without having to do much night travel, the two agreed it would be nice to have an evening together in the bright and floral place.

“So, um,” Perfuma said, catching Netossa by the hand after she showed them to the guest quarters. Her sunbleached hair was bunched up in a messy ponytail doubled over on itself, and beneath her tan she was blushing. “Can I ask you a… awkward question?”

“Yeah, honey, what’s up?” Netossa asked. She didn’t need to kneel to get at Perfuma’s height anymore, but Perfuma was small enough that Netossa still wanted to bend and get on her level.

“So, it’s a puberty question,” Perfuma started, then seemed to panic and backtrack, “And I know you probably want me to ask someone else but that feels weird and—” Perfuma cut herself off, fidgeting badly but not letting go of Netossa’s hand.

“Hey, girl, we’ve all been there,” Netossa said gently, but was relieved anyway when Spinnerella returned. “Perfuma has girl questions,” she informed Spinnerella briefly, and watched her brilliant lover connect the dots rapid fire. Spinnerella smiled warmly and bent down a little as well, also more to Perfuma’s level.

“What do you need sweetheart?”

Perfuma reached her free hand up to tug at her ear, elbow knobby and ear sticking out, limbs too long from growing too fast in that way young teenagers had.

“If I… like someone, and that someone is a good friend of mine, and I think sometimes about kissing that someone but then I see that person win a race and I start to feel… _weird,_ um. Like. Like, body weird.” Her blush was stronger than ever and she couldn’t look at them, which was just as well, since they were blushing too, “Is that what being… you know. Attracted, to someone, feels like?”

“Oh boy, okay, so, probably yes,” Netossa said, sitting down on the ridiculously plush grass of Plumeria that continued to grow even inside buildings where sunlight was more minimal. “Honey, has anyone given you the uh. Birds and the bees talk?”

Perfuma shrugged one shoulder and shifted on her feet uncomfortably. “Sort of? I know more about bees than uh, birds. Pollenation is a very advanced science here in Plumeria, and bees are our friends.” She bit her lip and tugged harder on her ear. “And… I know what animals do in the spring. But.”

“Not humans?” Spinnerella finished for her gently, sitting next to Netossa. Perfuma nodded. 

“Every time I try to ask one of the elders I back out or they give me weird half-answers,” Perfuma said, like an explanation, sitting in front of them.

“Alright, well, we can’t have you stumbling around in the dark now can we?” Netossa asked with a smile, even as she screamed internally at the stars for having to be the one to do this. But she had Spinnerella there to help her out, and it was just science. Science, anatomy, body parts that people had and pubescent teenagers needed to know about. That was enough to settle her nerves, and the three had a long conversation.

Third.

Spinnerella and Netossa are fully adult, fully together, and content with the fact that theirs will be a _long_ engagement. Few people know—they no longer parade their love life around like twin badges to all in range—but they make no effort to hide it. Netossa wears Spinerella’s necklace, and Spinnerella wears Netossa’s. They are “rings” around their necks, but rings enough for them.

Perfuma is one of the ones to figure it out. 

“What’s it like?” she asks Spinnerella, “To love someone enough to marry them?”

Spinnerella rolls her tongue around her mouth while the thought rolls in her head.

“Love is… a commitment.” She nods, to herself mostly, and continues, “Love is a feeling, sure, but it’s also a choice. It’s a decision you make every day, over and over. And Netossa and I have decided that we want to keep that commitment, every day, for the rest of our lives. We want an ‘always,’ and we want to choose that ‘always’ every day.” Spinnerella squints and leans forward, bracketing her face with open palms. “Marriage isn’t saying ‘I will love you every day,’ to someone, it is saying ‘every day, I know I’ll choose to love you.’ Which is kind of confusing but—”

“No, no, I get it,” Perfuma says. “One’s something you have to do, and the other’s a promise of what you will do.”

“Yeah! Yeah, you’ve got it.” Spinnerella bumps Perfuma’s shoulder with one arm and Perfuma bumps her back, smiling.

“Congratulations, by the way.”

Spinnerella beams and reaches up a hand to touch the bright blue stone on her neck. “Thanks.”

Fourth.

Netossa hardly wanted to leave her lover’s side, especially considering they’d just barely won the battle of Bright Moon thanks to She-ra’s planet-bending magic, but leave Spinnerella’s side she did, climbing up to the vantage point where Little Perfuma—who was an adult in her own right but looking far too small right then—was perched.

“Hey honey, what’s eating _you?”_ Netossa asked, sitting next to her and dangling one leg off the side of the stone, other bent to lean an elbow against. Perfuma’s eyes darted from wherever they’d been glued and seemed to notice Netossa for the first time, despite Netossa making no effort to hide herself, and she smiled. It was a pretty weak attempt at a smile, all things considered, and Perfuma had a _lot_ of experience smiling when she didn’t quite mean it.

“Nothing! I am fine! Why aren’t you down in the celebration?”

“So I could come up here and ask you that,” Netossa said bluntly, and Perfuma wilted. Netossa stretched out a hand and clasped her shoulder. “Hey,” she said, far gentler this time, “what’s goin’ on?”

Perfuma’s eyes returned to where they’d been and Netossa’s followed the gaze, landing on Bow and Glimmer, caught up in a tight embrace and babbling at each other excitedly, each seeming to intrinsically know when the other would break and seamlessly starting their own train of thought at the very moment it happened. Netossa connected the dots and made a little “oh.”

“Do you… know what heartbreak feels like?” Perfuma asked. She twirled a small vine around her fingers, fidgeting.

“Sorry, honey, that one I don’t know much about.”

Perfuma nodded. “You and Spinnerella have been together forever.”

“Not forever,” Netossa said with a snort, “but for a long, long time, yeah.” Her thumb stroked idly over Perfuma’s shoulder, an attempt at comfort.

“I feel like I should be more upset,” Perfuma said, watching Bow physically lift Glimmer into the air, their laughter rattling over the wind like bright and distant chimes. Perfuma leaned into Netossa, who wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “But I also feel like I’m more than upset enough.” 

Netossa kissed her hair, right above the flower crown, and told her, “It’ll be okay. You’ll meet someone else.”

“Oh, I know that,” Perfuma said, “I get crushes pretty easily. They always come and go.” Perfuma sighed, sinking more of her weight against Netossa. “Right now it just… sucks.”

Netossa snorted, to hear the usually-avoidant Perfuma phrase it so bluntly. “Yeah. Yeah, and that’s okay too,” she said, giving Perfuma’s arm a slow rub down and back up. “Love is hard sometimes, honey, it’s allowed to just suck for now. As long as you need.”

Tiny blue flowers twined around Netossa’s fingers and in her hair, pretty, friendly things. 

“Thanks.”


End file.
